Anothing (I went to type another thing, but I think I'm liking this slang) that I was musing on doing was a review column. I know, it sounds boring. But I'll quickly review the last few things that I've watched/read/listened to and hopefully it will be amusing. At least I get practice.

THE FILM:

Public Enemies - We pretty much all know the story. And we've certainly heard the ladies scream 'omg johnny depp christian bale channing tatum' without even stopping to breathe. First off, Channing Tatum dies. Very quickly. Let's just get that out of the way.

Second off, this movie is long, and likely too long (and possibly violent) for the attention span of said ladies (sexist, I know). The movie itself is decidedly very broody, but Johnny Depp's talent is not wasted here. Despite playing famed criminal John Dillinger with a certain amount of charm as he does well, I certainly couldn't help but dislike him. He was indeed a folk hero and celebrity among the people of the Great Depression, but he still broke the law, he still killed people, and he still usually got what he wanted at the expense of others, and eventually, himself.

Marion Cotillard seems quite conflicted here between playing the smart strong woman that knows that Dillinger is dangerous, and the vain stupidity of the public, blindly following Dillinger's every beck and call.

Christian Bale doesn't really have a whole lot to do here besides look seriously pissed at missing catching the crook at nearly every turn, but he's still fairly entertaining to watch. I mean, c'mon, it's Christian Bale. Do you want him to go and trash your lights? DO YOU?!!

And to round up the performances, Billy Crudup in his limited screen time does a surprisingly good job as the fairly young director of the FBI earnestly trying to gain the cooperation and respect of his peers.

I could say a lot more crap about how the script was, how the cinematography was, and all that jazz. But I won't. The facts are this: If you're only interested in watching this for the appearances of aforementioned stars and some good performances like I was, I'd probably wait for the DVD. Otherwise, sit back and enjoy yourself for two and a half hours.

B-

THE BOOK:

The Kite Runner by Khalid Hosseini - I'd better preface this review by saying that I hadn't seen the movie before reading the book, and I doubt I will, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Hosseini's story is a simple one, but the emotions go far deeper than that.

A brief overview of setting: Besides the prologue, the book starts in 1970 before the Russian's invaded Afghanistan and focuses on two young boys. The first is the son of a very wealthy man, whose mother died giving birth to him. The second is the former boy's servant, as well as playmate. This is their story.

I'm afraid this review won't go into much detail, so if you're looking for that, go find and read the book. The fact is, despite some interesting literary observations, this is not a masterpiece of symbolism and alliteration, but it is a story about emotions and manipulating yours.

I can't say I cried while reading the book, but you definitely can come to identify with Amir agha, the novel's protagonist, all while simultaneously coming even close to hating him.

This is not light reading, folks, but I'd say it's definitely worth your time. I'm almost ashamed to admit I knew almost nothing about the history of Afghanistan, and sometimes the book can be a real eye-opener.

B+

THE MUSIC:

Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes

My fingers are tired, so I'm just gonna say it like this: This album is one of the best I've heard in years. It's good for relaxing, it's good for car rides, and it's good for background listening. Fleet Foxes have mastered the art of maintaining the illusion of simplicity while their smokey melodies and echoing guitars all add up to anything but.

If you haven't heard the album, hear it. If you don't own it, buy it. And if you don't love it, may God have mercy on your soul.

A

The Sunday Update

Well, it's a been a week. Or at least almost.

Some very unfortunate things have happened in that week, one of the most being that my computer crashed. Motherboard became fried, kaput, done for. So I'm either stuck borrowing my mom's computer or using an old Dell laptop that has a broken screen, and using my old monitor. Needless to say, it's one of the slowest things on the planet, so I usually stick to the former.

I wish I had some more interesting things to tell you.

Oh wait.

I'm getting a Zune. A cherry red, 120 GB Zune. Yay me. Actually, I won't be all that excited until I can actually get all my music and more on it (which will be a bit of a task with my computer and all), but after living without a portable digital music player for nearly seventeen years, I can't wait.

Since it's been so long, I'm going to go ahead and post two blogs today, with the introduction of a new column, which may or may not have any lasting power. I'm bored, so what the heck. I'm also procrastinating on practicing my piano and washing our car.

..

-Ben

Downpourfall

As most of you know (and have somewhat witnessed on this blog), I like to write nearly anything. Blogs, lyrics, poetry, you name it. So, here is my latest (although not particularly recent) creation of poetical goodness.

Downpourfall

Rain turns up her nose
At the thirsty Field of dust
Even though the Old Rain knows
Field awaits Rain's muddy brush

'Won't you come down?' pleads the Field
'I promise you I will not drown
But Rain still refused to yield
To a simple patch of ground

Green crops! Field promises
And even rainbows, he begs
If only Rain was honest
For her, promises were dead

With a final screaming cry
Field begins to crack
Still Rain holds back her sky
Keeping exactly what Field lacks

Rain heaves a sigh for Field
But her sadness is not spent
For why should her tears be spilled
When she is perfectly content?

Rain leaves for another day
While Field remains in waste
But not too long for Field to say
'You go on, I'll wait'

Did someone call for delivery?

So I promised (aaack) a blog about the youth outreach that I attended last week. But since I'm a lazy git, I'll just copy + paste + edit off a massive e-mail that I sent to a friend. And I also promised photos, but the ones that I wanted uploaded haven't yet been, so all I have to go on is the ones I took myself with my crappy camera, when I bothered to take it out at all.

So, about those two days of outreach that we had last week. I got up early in the morning on Wednesday and went with my dad to the drop off point with a few other passengers and a whole heck of a lot of luggage (well, bags of clothes, sleeping material, our keyboard, our keyboard stand, my guitar, pillows, etc.) and we waited around for everybody else to get there. I had to make sure that we had all the stuff to set up sound for worship since I was in charge of everything and so then we packed up and headed out. There really weren't that many kids that went, and there were even a few that bailed out, but we still all had a really good time. The outreach was in this town (we're not sure what it was, it was way too big to be a village, but too small to be a city) called Wiang Pa Pao and all of us stayed in this children's home that I think is affiliated with our church. So we all slept on the tile floors, and that's probably why I'm still so exhausted. Soon after we arrived, we ate lunch and then drove out to the first high school that we were going to be witnessing at. We had a little program all set up with skits, songs, testimonies, and other things, but we really only had forty-five minutes there so we were a little short on time. We were all separated into three different teams for the different skits that we were gonna do: There was one team doing that 'Everything' skit, one team doing this other skit I found on the internet, and then our team was doing a funny one. Interestingly enough, all the girls went crazy over the guy playing Jesus.

Said guy.

On the whole the reception was pretty positive: they laughed at our skit, they cheered in the others when Jesus conquered, and they all accepted tracts. Score.

Later we went out to this thing in the middle of the town; but there didn't seem to be that many people around. And there was where we'd have all of our actual band play which really..didn't go so well. Most of the planning had to be done on the fly because I wasn't quite sure what was going on, and I'd have to say it was a bit of a mess. Even the other things we did didn't go so well: Most of the audience were younger kids and so they didn't really get any of the skits that we did and so the whole evening seemed to fall a little flat. After that we went back to the children's home to play a few card games before heading off to bed.

In the morning we got up (well, duh Ben, obviously) and ate a little bit of breakfast, and then prepared to go walking all around the whole of Wiang Pa Pao, handing tracts out to everyone that we could see who would take them. We spent several hours doing that and although it was blazing hot, it was a pretty rewarding experience. My small group even stopped and were able to hand this tract out to this Buddhist monk that we saw, although he didn't look the happiest.

After that we had a different school that we were going to that wasn't just high school students, but high school was still the age group that we'd be speaking to. That whole thing seemed to go pretty much the same way as the other school we went to did, and that was pretty fun. Although this time we had a lot more time to speak with the kids, and that was quite interesting. We definitely met some pretty cool people, and some of them even got some of us guys to go play basketball with them. I thought we were going to lose really bad, but people were saying that we won (I still don't believe them). If we did in fact win, it was only because of a certain person who towered over everybody and would have to rebound every shot that we missed. I'm pretty sure he was the only person on our team who scored.

There was a little bit more free time to be had as well as dinner until the evening when another youth group came to see us do our program. Since the people coming were already Christians, we spared them a few things and got right into it. That night I actually shared. Yeah, I know, little shy ol' me. I'd have to say I think it went pretty well. Anyway, right after they left, things were getting a bit emotional and all of a sudden somebody hits the ground and so we all crowd around and start praying and singing and crying..it was pretty cool. But actually our youth pastors had to tell us to stop because it was getting late and we might disturb the neighbors and/or get a little carried away. One of them says that slab of concrete is anointed with our holy snot now, and anyone who later walks on it is gonna get blessed, and I'd have to say, I wouldn't be too surprised if it happened. After that little experience we all played BS (Liar, Cheat, whatever you want to call it) together and then 'went to bed.' I put that in quotations because all the guys had big plans to finally take revenge on the girls after all the pranks that have pulled on us in previous youth camps by certain unnamed girls. We still failed, but at least we scared the female youth pastor really badly, so it was almost worth it. Then again, I didn't get much sleep that night.

The children's home where we stayed at. Yep, that's the floor we slept on.

The next morning mostly consisted of us eating breakfast and then packing up and leaving, and we were all pretty tired.

I've talked a lot about what we did, but I haven't really talked most about the emotional intangible things that we were all going through. Well, first of all, I'd have to say this was one of my few youth experiences that I didn't particularly touched by God. That's not to say it wasn't an amazing experience, it just seemed like I was already in the moment and in that place. Most of the other people did in fact, get a kind of spiritual reawakening so it's not as if the whole thing went down in flames. I do know for an absolute fact that God was with us through the whole time, even when we messed up; I can honestly say that for worship I have never ever heard me sing that good. I don't know if I ever will again, but this is just one thing that stuck out like a sore thumb to me.

The other thing that happened that probably impacted me more than any of the other stuff was the sense of community that I got just from spending two days with these people. I mean, by the end of it, we literally felt just like one big family. There was nothing that couldn't be shared around, and nothing too little to be cared for. And I think in that aspect it truly was amazing. Just that fact alone made all the stress and all the exhaustion completely 100 percent worth it.

Until next time,
Ben

P.S. When the other pictures that I want get uploaded, I will be sure to get them to you. Cheers.

For her, promises were dead.

Ah, promises, promises. They can be oh so fickle, especially for me. I'll have to work on that.

In my last blog I'd said I'd get back to you on the whole cheesy love song thing. I've been wanting to write a catchy one of my own but right now I'll just have to settle for the millionth play of I'm Yours.

Also going along with promises, I'm promising an actual blog in the near future. No shortness, no alter-egos, just cold hard reality. Actually I want to talk about the youth outreach that I went on last week and that was anything but cold and hard. Well, except for the floors. But yeah, expect some interesting stories with hopefully some pictures to boot.

And if you were wondering, the title comes from a poem that I wrote. I might show it to you sometime, if you ask nicely (even though some of you may have already read it.)_

Breathless, caught in the moment.

It's raining heavily outside, and cheesy love songs are on my mind.

I'll...I'll get back to you on that.

Striking again.

Benjammin' Funkyfresh had just woken up from his glorious nap off his hammock that overlooked the gold-plated pool that stood beside his mansion. Despite all of the available necessities (you know, foot massagers, margaritas), he felt burdened. Burdened from life's many problems and pitfalls and real problems that normal and more credible rappers don't go through. And at that moment Funkyfresh decided that 'dat pain IS real, yo.' Also in that moment, he made a phone call to fire his songwriter, whom he was paying five hundred dollars an hour to spit out the next hit. 'Heavy, man, real heavy.' He had decided that he was going to write his own songs. No more glocks. No more shawtys. Just the truth. And that my friends, is the true story of this next song.


It's automatic, like reflex is emphatic
With acrobatic attack like rats in the attic
I'm not proud to say I've always had it
Like withdrawal syndrome from a recovering addict
While I'm at it, don't believe the hearsay
The fact of the matter is it only looks this way
It just feels so f***ing useless even when I try to communicate with music
Abuse it like no right to make nuclear fusion or confusion
Don't believe illusion, because it's the image of vanity when I try to use profanity
Screaming at the world and trying to keep my sanity
Dodging like Hannity and everything that you try and call me
But loathe me? Ever knowing the scolders scold me holding
A royal flush to the consecutive folding, but boldly I'm going
All in to defend the measure of a better hand again with the cards
Now you made it hard to salvage the far gone shards of parts and rejects
But the least of it is I can only pick up the pieces

'It's like a whole mofo'ing epiphany, dawg!'

-Benjammin' Funkyfresh

The simple joys in life.

So, an awesome thing happened today.

There is money. In my pocket.

All because I work four days a week, and it finally paid off.

Thank God for paydays.

Random thought: I wonder if there's a beard fairy.